OpenWalkAthens "Γεύσεις του Κέντρου (Flavours of the Centre)"

You can say that we are back for more :)
Today's menu: A stroll in central Athens, the as mentioned in the title "OpenWalkAthens", and also as you notice just below on the poster.

The event is organised by a group of volunteers called "atenistas", that are involved to pretty much anything that regards the city life, may that be cleaning neighbourhoods, beaches, planting trees etc.
As far as this event is concerned it was a walk to some traditional (and not only) shops of the city that you could try/taste/look/drink/etc and of course buy. As for more info, just take a look at the pictures! ;)

1. Aristokratikon - Pastry shop

(nice chocolate pralines!)

2. Mitropolitikon - Also a pastry shop

3. Pnika - Bakery

(nice wholemeal bread)

4. Peri Lesvou - A smaller traditional grocery shop

(really nice decorated!)

5. Elixir - Shop selling herbs and spices

Had a very nice and original name on one of the spice jars

 

6. Miran - Cold cuts shop

(the wall of the upper floor had a garden attached.. awesome!)

Hanging over everyone's heads..

Sacks full of spices

7. Gianniotiko - Mostly various kinds of cheese (and some fish, so not much to report on that)

8. Stou Meidani - Cozy tavern with very tasty "giant" beans

Inside the tavern, some old radio on the wall stealing the show!

9. Ariana - Olives

As you can see it had a lot of those :)

10. Klimataria - Another tavern...

... with a lovely interior

11. Mokka - Coffee brewing shop 

The aroma was so overwhelming and lovely

at some spots it looked like the inside of a ship

(actually it had various kinds of coffee)

12. Vorrias - Nuts and dry fruits

13. Krinos - Donuts (not like the american ones though) with honey, miam miam!

14. Another traditional grocery shop with lots of Mediterranean delicacies 

Very cosy interior, clean, big and with a big variety

15. Zafolia brothers - Cheese (yes only!)

16. Folia meliou - Honey shop!

A honeycomb

17. Limnia Gi - Products from Lemnos island

18. O mpakalogatos - Traditional grocery shop (yup another one)

19. Polykalas - Alcohol shop

Very very nice rakomelo (that's raki a greek traditional drink with honey)

20. Ktistakis - Donuts

21. Stani - Milk and sweets

We got yoghurt with honey, yummy!

22. Last but not least, Kafenio ton mousikon - Traditional cafe with live music

(unfortunately was too crowded and we didn't have the chance to stay and listen)

Overall a great walk in central Athens, with a lot of participants and maybe more than a couple of places to discover even for someone that already knows the city, lovely!

p.s. Goodnight!

Green

Wow, so better late than never right?

We continue from where we stopped (which in this case would be before me being in Greece this summer) and I post a picture of a great foody sallad I made earlier today. It is not a masterpiece so I won't share some sort of "recipe" here haha.

Godnatt!

Lefkada - Final Days

Right now time is not on our side so we'll post a few remaining pictures of Lefkada and of our way back to Athens. Here we go one final time!

Pictures: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 & 9 Aris

4, 7 & 8 Isabella

Rockwave 2013

Being spontaneous last evening we drove a few km away from Athens to the third and last day of Rockwave festival. Headliners were Dead Can Dance, which automatically means that the crowd would be a small one, since while they're good they're not that famous.

Other than them there was a wide variety of music styles, from extreme metal (septic flesh) to funk/soul (monophonic), and from brit pop (Greg Walker) to some sort of melodic metal-opera (chaostar), there were also a couple of other bands but we went to the venue a bit later so we're clueless.

Chaostar - A greek band a la nightwish, but not as metal. We also found out, just now, that some of the members plays in Septic Flesh as well. They were good by the way!

Greg Walker - Ex brit pop "star", known from Archive. He had a great attitude and made sure that everyone else around him felt at ease... (not). His irish humour though made the first negative impression subside. Very talkative too, couldn't stop himself calling everyone a bitch haha.

Monophonics - All da way from california, sort of the black card really, very energetic and dancey, the singer had a very James Brownish voice.

A random spraying-everyone-and-don't-care-stilt walker

Part of festival area

Septic "we are highly influenced by dead can dance" Flesh - Another greek band, no comments from Aris (not my cup of tea). And many comments from Isabella (scary as hell, it felt like they wanted to murder me when they sang, it's the devils music whaaaa!), no but really, huuu.

Dead Can Dance - Aris comment (my cup of tea!). Isabellas comments (hai!) <--- inside humour don't bother...

ΠΟΡΤΟ ΚΑΤΣΙΚΙ

As the post title says we went to Porto Katsiki which is one of the most famous beaches in the island. No need to write a lot about it actually, only that once again (like Egremni), you drive through hell to get there... and now that we talk about it, a tip for fellow drivers, be sure you have a full tank of gas in your car, you never know haha. We didn't, and on our trip back to our hotel as it got darker we had so little gas left that we thought we were going to have to spend the night on the mountains...

Pictures: 1 & 2 Isabella

3 & 4 Aris

p.s. To be continued...

Like it or not :P (Aris' comment, Isabella doesn't agree)

5th day

We started of this day by going to Sivota, a small village with an equally small, but cute, gulf and enjoyed some very nice food at a tavern next to the water. Later on we went to the waterfalls in Nidri and after a really nice "adventurous" walk we reached the waterfall. There we were brave enough to have a dip in the ice cold water as well, so refreshing and energy filling, really something to remember! If you ever find yourselves there don't hesitate. Finally we headed back to Lefkada city and attended a music school orchestra doing covers from "modern" songs, like PSY - Gangnam style haha and Queen. Of course the ABBA intermission couldn't be missing the whole summery mood haha.

1. In Sivota, as mentioned above.

2. The waterfall.

3.Same as the previous, they are located in a forest by the way.

4. The "concert"

Pictures: 1 Isabella

2, 3 & 4 "Cool" Aris

p.s. To be continued...

(is this really interesting to anyone reading? eh? eh?)

4th day in Lefkada

We decided to go to Egremni beach (or as Isabella prefers "paradise beach"). So you go by your car to what feels like the highest point of the mountain, then start climbing it down and finally when you're there, you park, and you realise that there are still 350 "stairs to heaven" that take you down to this wonderful spot. If you are still alive when reaching the goal, you are lucky, phew!

No need for further explanation here!

Pictures: 1 & 3 Aris 

2 & 4 Isabella

p.s. To be continued...

Och på den tredje dagen

The roads led us to Vasiliki

1. But first we took a picture of this lovely house in Lefkada city. 

2 & 3. Vasiliki with all its taverns along the harbour.

Pictures: 1 & 2 Aris

3 Isabella

p.s. To be continued...

2nd episode...

... as second day in Lefkada... and as we wrote in the previous post we have a lot of pictures from there, so hopefully you won't get fed up with it!

1. A house nearby a beach just outside Lefkada city - the water looks lovely but it was a struggle only to walk into the water due to the rocky (deadly) ground

2. Lefkada city, itself

3. Backside view from our hotel - the image doesn't do enough justice though.

Pictures: 1 & 2 Aris

3 Isabella

p.s. To be continued...

Lefkada - First Day

We are back! After 10 days in paradise (call it Lefkada, not Thailand).

And since we are so nice we're going to post (a few times) about our time there, just so you see :P and become a bit jealous!.. yeah, so... We have pictures, A lot, I mean A LOT!! So in order to not lose all of our readers (god, you are so many nowadays - we wish) we will try to keep it down on a decent level.

1. Hotel's garden

2. At a tavern; enjoying a traditional dance!

Pictures: Aris

After a long blogging absence here we are again, alive and kicking.

As you can imagine from the photographs we are in Athens; for the moment at least because tomorrow we are going to Lefkada (yes that's a Greek island, obviously, for God's sake... jesus!!! hahaha).

p.s. About the previous post: no it wasn't Aris on his own.

1. In a tavern in Plaka, Athens

2. Same as first, not in the tavern though haha

3. Some very nice graffitti art in Psiri, Athens

4. At a café in Chalandri, Athens

Pictures: 1, 2 & 3 Isabella

4 Aris

I'll Be Watching You

Sneaky bastard Poseidon